


Keeping Up Appearances: Spock, 1967

by tprillahfiction



Category: Star Trek RPF, Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: American Actor RPF - Freeform, Comedy RPF, Gen, Star Trek RPF - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-20
Updated: 2010-09-20
Packaged: 2017-10-12 00:59:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/119058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tprillahfiction/pseuds/tprillahfiction
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kirk, Spock & McCoy are trapped in Los Angeles, California, circa 1967 for a weekend.  Spock goes home to Leonard Nimoy's house and family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keeping Up Appearances: Spock, 1967

**Author's Note:**

> May contain references to real people. (who aren't really like this, it's just a silly story.)  
> acknowledgments and appologies to Adam. Various versions of my story appear in various archives. This is the most updated version and has been rewritten in places. "The Riv" is Leonard Nimoy's black 1966 Buick Rivera.

The tall figure dressed in slim grey trousers, a fashionable black turtleneck and a brown corduroy jacket turned to the blond woman standing in front of him.

"Leonard?" she asked. He was just now becoming comfortable answering to that name. The name that really belonged to the Chief Medical Officer on his ship. "Are you ever going to take off your hat?"

His black crocheted hat was pulled down past his ears to keep the woman and indeed the rest of this world from realizing that he was not one of them. He was an alien stuck in this time. He touched his hat in a protective stance against the woman and this world.

This woman was, as far as his precursory knowledge had told him, married to the man he resembled. An actor. A human actor. A man with a modest, Spanish style, white stucco, red-brick accented house. A man with an attractive young family in the Fox Hills area of West Los Angeles, California. Old calendar, Earth Date, June 17th 1967.

He and his two companions: Captain James T Kirk and Dr. Leonard McCoy, had been in process of beaming down to Gamma Sudra II. Due to a time vortex, they found themselves trapped in a different time and place. They'd found they had materialized on earth in the 20th century. They had beamed into an alternate Enterprise transporter room which now appeared to be something called a three sided "wilded set", complete with blinding bright lights pointed at them, a peculiar large recording device and an assortment of men standing around watching them in a large area known as a soundstage. Captain Kirk had decided that it was best for the three of them to keep up the pretenses that they themselves were these actors as not to affect the time stream. That was somewhat acceptable for the daytime, the process of this "filming" being interesting, even slightly enjoyable.

Then the time came for the work day to come to a close for the weekend. The captain had also decided that each of them would chance going home to their respective actor's families.

Perhaps that had been an unwise decision on the captain's part.

Spock continued to stare intently at the woman and did not know what sort of conversation he should be having with her.

"Hi, Daddy!" Two children ran up and hugged him. He shied away from their touch and emotions.

The woman, of course, noticed.

"Dammit, Leonard!" she huffed. "You've been gone all day long! The least you could do is acknowledge your kids!"

"I am sorry," Spock replied. "And you, children. I apologize." He wished at once that he had found out their names prior to leaving the studio.

"That's okay, daddy!" the young boy replied. This was a young child who unnervingly looked exactly like him.

"We didn't hear you pull up dad, where's the Riv?" the girl asked.

The Riv? Ah... the Buick Rivera. Spock had noticed the large black car resting at the actor's parking space next to the soundstage. A primitive machine. "I did not bring the automobile home," he replied honestly. He could not successfully drive a 20th century ground transport vehicle. Nor could Dr. McCoy and especially not Captain Kirk. After much discussion and many attempts they had decided to take public transportation home.

"So I guess you took a cab home. I also take it there was a wrap party tonight. That's why you're late."

"Wrap party?" he wondered, bewildered. "Is that a celebration involving some sort of clothing?" He had checked some history tapes. "Perhaps music?"

"What?"

To Spock's relief, the boy broke into the conversation: "Daddy, after we eat dinner do you want to play some chess?"

At last, a refreshing similarity to his own time. "I would indeed." The two kids went off to get ready for dinner. He would look forward to playing chess with this child.

The woman eyed him with disapproval. "You might want to drop the Spock act, Leonard."

He raised an eyebrow. "The Spock act?"

"Yes. That." She pointed at him. "The eyebrow business. The un-emotional stuff. I've been meaning to talk to you about it. You're bringing your work home with you too much. You're not really that guy you know."

He nodded. To avoid detection he was going to have to act as 'un-himself-like' as he possibly could. Jim and the doctor had warned him as such. The unfortunate thing was, he did not know how.

He was alone for the moment and decided to investigate the rest of the house. He walked from the living area with its large blue sofa, paintings and two dimensional photographic images decorating the walls, into the library. Shelves lined the walls of this library and in the corner sat an impeccably kept glass tank filled with water. An orange colored aquatic animal swam to the surface of the tank and looked at him expectantly.

Also in this room, there were several musical instruments which he himself could play. That in itself was comforting. But there was an odd device on the shelf that caught his eye. It had a flat turntable with an arm-like appendage attached. Underneath the arm there was a tiny diamond needle that made a loud scratching noise when he touched it. What was it for? Perhaps the answer lie in several black disks stacked neatly nearby in paper sleeves. He pulled one out and examined it: "Mr. Spock's music from outer Space." There was a picture of himself on it. Fascinating. This was apparently a device to play musical recordings.

"Leonard!" the woman's voice rang out from the other room. "Or Mr. Spock! Whatever you're calling yourself these days!"

Ah...the female's attempt at humor.

"Telephone for you!"

Telephone? What was a telephone? He walked back into the living quarters--or rather the living room. He looked at her quizzically till she handed him a black object then went off into the kitchen. He was now holding what appeared to be a communications device. He spoke hesitantly into what he hoped was the proper receiver: "Leonard...here."

" _Spock_?" A familiar voice. " _How's everything going_?"

"Awkward, Jim. Awkward," he whispered into the receiver so the family wouldn't hear. "Impersonating this human to his own family is at the very least difficult if not impossible."

" _Oh..._ " replied the captain. " _I'm sorry to hear about that. I can't say the same for me. I've been having the best sex of my life_!"

Spock nearly dropped the telephone. "Jim, are you certain that is wise?"

" _Oh...sure! It's perfectly fine! I figured since that guy I'm supposed to be impersonating looks just like me there was no harm in it. Bones agrees with me. Besides...I couldn't resist that wife of his. She was wearing nothing but this--_ "

"Jim," Spock interrupted. "I do not wish to know."

" _Sorry._ "

"Have you contacted Dr. McCoy?"

" _Oh yeah. He's doing great_!"

An eyebrow went up. "Are you certain?"

" _Yeah. He just loves that wife he's got over there. And he's having a blast playing with a dog and a turtle._ "

"A turtle?"

" _Yeah, Myrtle the turtle! Apparently._ " That started off a bout of hysterical laughter from the captain.

"Jim," Spock said, impatiently. "I am overjoyed that you and Dr. McCoy are having an agreeable time in this adventure. However, I am not."

" _Sorry Spock. You are going to have to deal with it till we get back to the studio on Monday morning. That at least will give Scotty time to locate us._ "

"Yes, an undertaking that will be difficult since that gentleman at the studio insisted on confiscating our communicators, phasers and tricorders, refering to them as his 'Feinbergers'."

" _That's right. He had the determination of a fleet admiral,_ " Kirk agreed. " _My hand still hurts where he slapped it._ "

"Jim--"

" _Uh...Spock...I have to go now. She's back. Oh boy... is she ever...Bye Spock!_ " There was a click and the captain's voice was gone. He replaced the receiver back where it presumably belonged.

"Dinner's ready!" the woman called out as she placed the food on the dining room table.

"Does the dinner by any chance contain animal flesh?" Spock inquired, then immediately wished he had not.

The woman placed her hands on her hips. "Yes it does contain animal flesh. Oh...are we now becoming a vegetarian? Just like Spock?"

Spock said nothing as he joined the family around the table. The family ate dinner and chatted around him with Spock attempting to field questions as to how his 'day' was. He picked at his food much to the annoyance of the wife. The family dog appeared out of nowhere, sat there at his feet, begging for a handout of food. He surreptitiously handed the canine a morsel, noticed the wife's growing irritation at him.

Finally the torture that was a family dinner was over. The kids helped their mother clear the dishes from the table. Spock was determined to get back into the woman's good graces at least for the weekend. "I could assist you with clean-up," he offered.

"No Leonard, I can handle it. How about you play chess with your son?"

"Acknowledged." At her glare, he strode off to find the boy and the chess set. When he found them he was disappointed. It was not a three-dimensional board. It was simply a flat version. "This is it?" he demanded of the child.

"What color do you want to be?"

He would let the child go first. "Black," he said.

As they played he noticed the boy showed remarkable talent. But of course Spock won. "Wow, Daddy!" the boy exclaimed. "You played pretty good!"

"Do I not always play well?"

"No. You usually lose."

"I see." Spock steepled his fingers and studied his chessboard. How one could not win with a young child as an opponent was beyond him.

The woman had returned. "Adam, it's nearly time for _Star Trek_."

"Okay, Mom!" The boy hurriedly left the room. Ah. The son's name was Adam. An interesting moniker, a Hebrew name. He would not have chosen it himself. The boy looks more like a 'Sonak', but then again, this was not really his child.

" _Leonard_!"

He sighed and headed off in the direction of the wife's voice. He discovered the entire family plus the family dog sitting on a large bed in what appeared to be the master bedroom, a viewing device was set to 'on' and warming up. Apparently it was a family tradition to view this device together in the bedroom. He could not imagine what this activity might fully entail.

At first was a program called "The News With Walter Cronkite." This featured a middle aged gentleman delivering the days news in a slightly staccato fashion, emotionally detached and quite logical. This was proving rather enjoyable.

Adam, to his credit, did a passable imitation of the man, till his mother told him to "knock it off."

Next the event, that the rest of the family had been waiting for, appeared. The television program opened with an image of Dr. McCoy conversing in Sickbay with Nurse Chapel. Fascinating, but terribly inaccurate from a medical standpoint. Dr. McCoy would certainly be appalled, but as for the man playing him: The resemblance was remarkable.

Then there was a long barrage of advertisements: for cigarettes and various other products. The family ignored all of it, chatting animatedly until Captain Kirk's voice recited over images of the ship: "Space...the Final...Frontier, these...are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Her Five Year Mission... to explore strange new worlds...to seek out new life forms--"

"Why does he keep pausing in that manner?" Spock enquired, but the family shushed him.

"To boldly go...where no man has gone... before," Captain Kirk's voice finished.

"That phrase is incorrect," Spock told them, helpfully. "It is a split infinitive. He should say: 'To go, Boldly.'"

"Leonard!"

He was respectfully quiet until an image appeared in black and white. It was him, or his doppleganger, looking into what appeared to be his scanner. Spock could not avoid gaping at the screen. The man looked exactly like... "That is me," he pointed out.

"That's a brilliant one, Dad," the girl said.

They continued to watch, his eyebrow climbing and remaining in the upright position. At certain points in the program he was skeptical. He opened his mouth to point out the numerous technical inaccuracies to this family, as he felt it was his duty to inform them of such, but each time he received another: "Shhh!!".

So it was there he sat, riveted with the family, and the dog, until the very end. At the music, the wife shut off the TV. She was smiling proudly at him. Ah...now he was in her good graces.

"What'd you think of it, Daddy?" Adam enquired.

"I believe, it was...poorly shot," he replied honestly. "Unrealistic as well."

"Unrealistic?" the wife scoffed. "Of course it is. It's Star Trek."

"That mission did not really happen in that way." He explained to the family how it really occurred. 'Star Trek' had miscalculated the formula by three point two seven five microns! That conference room is on level 6 not level 5, it takes thirty two point seven seconds to reach the bridge from engineering via turbolift, not the brief amount of time they were trying to pass off as correct.

Additionally, he does not cry. Not like that.

"I thought your acting was lovely, Honey," the wife said. "Especially your scene with Nurse Chapel."

"She does not feel that way about me," he muttered, rather tersely.

"Alright," the wife snapped. "I think, it's time for bed. Everybody out."

"But Mom--" the children began.

"Now!"

The children and the dog immediately vacated the room. Spock got up as well.

"Not you!" she said.

He sat back down on the bed obediently, the wife shook her head and walked into the adjoining bathroom.

In her absence, for lack of something better to do, he went to the large closet, found some nightclothes that this man would obviously wear and got ready for bed. He crawled under the covers, still wearing the black cap. He struggled to fall asleep before she finished her ablutions and returned but found himself unable to. He noted that she'd stayed 25.34 minutes in the shower, a device that obviously sprayed real water, not sonics as he was used to. The spray was annoyingly loud to his ears.

He was nearly asleep when she finally crawled into bed. "Len," she said softly. "Look what I bought for you today!"

He opened his eyes, looked around for the gift and could find nothing. "I do not see anything."

"It's right here you lunk head! I'm wearing it! What do you think?"

Ah, she was clad in a short, silken nightgown with thin straps. "It is red and your breasts are slightly visible."

Her eyes narrowed. Oh no. He had upset the woman. Yet again.

"I keep in shape for you," she said. "So the least you could do is say something better than that! You've been acting kooky all evening and you're still...STILL wearing that damn Vulcan make-up of yours and that... damned hat!" She snatched at the hat but he avoided her grasp.

"My apologies. There was no offense meant at your appearance. I merely meant that you look...sufficiently appealing in your night clothing," Spock attempted.

The woman started to cry. "You can't even stop sounding like Spock anymore!"

She got up, ran into the bathroom and locked the door.

At last it was blissfully quiet and he was alone.

Then he heard even louder crying noises coming from the bathroom.

He sighed, got up from the bed and stood at the door. "Please...do not..." He stopped. How had the captain coached him to speak? Apologize constantly, even if he was not wrong. Use a contraction while apologizing. "Please DON'T cry," he said to the closed door. "I'm sorry. Please don't cry." Then he added for good measure, "I was terribly wrong. Woefully inaccurate. You're right." That should be the correct response regarding all confrontations with the female, if the captain had been correct.

The door opened and she came out. Success. Fascinating.

"I'm sorry too," she said, drying her eyes. "I know you work hard all day and I know you're really tired. I love you."

He nodded.

After a few moments the woman leaned over to kiss him tenderly. He gave in, reluctantly, knowing that he had to keep up appearances.

The next morning the telephone rang. The woman answered it. "It's for you honey!" her voice rang out sweetly.

He took the receiver from her and held it up to his ear. "Hello?"

" _Good morning, Spock!_ " said Captain Kirk. " _Did you sleep well_?"

He had slept extremely well. "It was adequate."

" _Oh...Well, why was that woman so happy on the phone?_ "

Spock looked over at the woman, next to him in bed. She winked at him.

"I don't know, Jim," he replied.

_______  
fin


End file.
